


just like little fish

by secondaudrina (firstaudrina)



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Abortion, Body Dysphoria, Eating Disorders, F/M, Gen, chuck exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-24
Updated: 2011-09-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22355704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/secondaudrina
Summary: Blair pretends it doesn't exist for thirteen weeks. After that, it really doesn't.Itis just this mass of biology taking up residence in Blair's body, leaching off her and making her nauseous.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Louis Grimaldi/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	just like little fish

Blair pretends it doesn't exist for thirteen weeks. After that, it really doesn't.

It is always _it_ because that's what it is; it is not a girl or a boy. _It_ is just this mass of biology taking up residence in Blair's body, leaching off her and making her nauseous. Blair hates it, the thing inside her - the little leach, the parasite, that makes her throw up her breakfast whether she likes it or not.

Blair had never thought of being a mother, except in the abstract. She's not particularly maternal. She assumed one day she would marry Nate – no, scratch that, Chuck – no, scratch that, Louis – and have two children, a boy and a girl. She would not be like her mother (she would be exactly like her mother).

When they were young, she and Serena would throw around names they liked. Blair used to have little girl fantasies of kids with her pale skin and dark hair and Nate's blue eyes (she'd had a hard time letting that go, once upon a time). But Blair has never had an affinity for children, has no idea what to do with them, how to hold them, what to say to them - she'd prefer they were older, more like people and less like pets.

High school was just a close call. It was not this incriminating little plus sign, spelling out all everything that Blair was and wasn't: slut, cheater, mother, mother, mother.

Blair throws it in the trash and promptly forgets.

Blair does a lot of things in Monaco. She tries on tiaras. She buys clothes and shoes and eats macarons of every color. Louis takes her to museums and to the theatre. She plans on being a Princess Of The People, like Diana, and begins to throw herself into charity work.

Blair's life slots neatly into boxes, little windows of time printed up for her by someone in Louis' entourage. Waking promptly at seven, showering, dressing, having her makeup and hair done for her, breakfast (a slice of melon, a quarter cup of yogurt, one slice whole wheat toast no butter), dress fittings, charities, meetings, Louis, no time for lunch (and she must fit into her wedding dress, after all), dressing, press conference, dressing, gala, dinner (half her portion), wash face, bed.

Sometimes, in between her boxes, Blair steals five minutes to throw up her grapefruit.

"I'm homesick," she tells Louis, pouting. "I'm nervous." She's got the jitters, she ate something that didn't agree with her. It's simply the air in Monaco, she can't stop puking.

"It's hectic now, but it will calm," Louis promises. "We can return to your home a few months, will that make you happy, my love?"

No. Reality waits in New York and Blair is content to live her dream. "Yes," she says, beams, and waits for Louis to kiss her smile.

"This is the problem with you," Blair snaps into her phone, "You always think you're right."

" _I_ always think I'm right?" Dan says. She can hear the raised eyebrow in his voice. "Have you met yourself?"

"Though I don't know why I'm surprised," she continues, ignoring him. "You _would_ like this movie."

"It's a classic," Dan protests. She imagines him frowning by now. "But if you don't want to watch it, I can hang up and leave you to your French talk shows."

"God, you're touchy," Blair says. " _Fine_ , we'll watch it."

Blair touches up her makeup before they get off the plane, carefully smoothing her foundation, brightening up her blush. The cut didn't leave a scar, luckily, but sometimes in certain lighting Blair always thinks she can still see it, the faintest hint of a mark. It took longer to fade than the bruise on the back of her left arm from Chuck pushing her onto the bench. That was much easier to cover too.

Back in New York it's like Blair never left, only it seems that in her absence the entire city decided to spawn. Some pregnant idiot the size of a house pushing ten or twelve children in a baby carriage waits for her on every single street corner. Little packs of children and nannies keep getting in her way. It's starting to make her panicky, short of breath.

She's going to abandon her shopping just to get away from it when she turns the corner and runs smack into Dan.

He steadies her with a hand on her shoulder. "Blair?"

She jerks away from him. "Who else would it be, Humphrey?"

"I don't know," he says mildly. "Maybe you have a doppelganger. Aren't you supposed to be in Monaco?"

"I'm here now," she says. She can hear herself be sharper with him than she means to but she can't turn it off.

His brow creases a little. "Are you okay, Waldorf?"

"I'm fine," she snaps. Her breath comes in shakily and she makes herself take another, deeper one. "I'm fine. I'm doing some light shopping and then going to meet Louis for lunch." That's calming too, repeating her little schedule, picturing the little boxes of time.

Dan studies her a moment, frowning, and says, "Do you want me to walk you?"

Blair surprises herself completely by saying, "Yes."

Dan nods and doesn't press as they start to walk again. After a moment he says, "I can't believe you're here."

"Of all the gin joints, Humphrey."

Louis looks a little put out to have a third party join their lunch but he handles it charmingly and politely, shaking Dan's hand and gesturing for him to sit. "It's so nice to meet more of Blair's friends," he says. "I only know Serena, and then only briefly."

Dan glances at Blair, as though expecting her to deny that they're friends. She doesn't. "It's good to meet you too."

"You've been helpful to Blair and I," Louis says. "I never did thank you for the pink party stunt."

Dan laughs. "No thanks necessary, really."

Lunch goes obnoxiously well. Blair had been half-hoping Dan would be embarrassing enough that she could apologize to Louis after ( _He's from_ Brooklyn, _what do you expect?_ ) but he's not. Dan is conversational and normal and she can tell Louis likes him. He's the kind of person Louis would be friends with, probably.

"He's nice," Louis says when Dan leaves. He glances at her. "You were just friends, before?"

Blair raises both eyebrows. "Yes. I've told you that."

"It's just –" Louis hesitates. "It seemed, sometimes, when he looked at you –"

She cuts him off. "We kissed once. It was before you came to the city. We thought maybe there might have been something there, but there wasn't anything. I promise, there's nothing but friendship between Dan and I."

Louis nods, smiles, seems relieved.

Every time Blair tries to call Serena she gets voicemail, or just endless ringing; Serena's answering message has become personalized just for Blair.

_Serena is super tied up with work but she promises to be back in time for bridesmaid fittings. Nate sends his love!_

Blair used to think that if she were to attend any wedding dress fittings before her twenty-first birthday, it would be for some idiot Serena chose to tie herself to for a month before annulling it out of boredom. Blair would be the one with the exciting, high-powered job, chatting away on her cell phone while simultaneously assuring Serena that _yes, lavender flowers are perfect_.

Well. How things change.

Nate has become another non-entity in Blair's life. It's clear whose side he's taking in the breakup and it's clear that it isn't hers. She shakes it off. One less ex-boyfriend to worry about.

Though Princess Sophie thankfully stays behind, Blair and Louis are not in New York four days before Beatrice has arrived. "Mama wants someone to keep an eye on things," she says, looking at Blair with such disdainful superiority that Blair knows exactly who she's here to keep an eye on. "Can't have the wedding plans lagging just because you both chose to go on vacation."

Louis seems to find his sister charming, or something. He laughs. "Blair is on top of everything. I doubt a single flower could escape her watchful eye."

Blair preens under the compliment.

Beatrice hovers at Blair's shoulder all day every day ("She wants to help," Louis says), tossing out little sniping comments in her even-toned voice. "Lilac?" Beatrice asks, raising an eyebrow at the photograph of Blair's bridesmaids dresses. It goes on and on. Hydrangeas? Bows on your centerpieces? Louis looks terrible in champagne white, you know.

Blair takes it all ( _I am Grace Kelly, Grace Kelly is me_ ) in stride.

Blair's looking over the wedding dress sketches her mother faxed over when Beatrice leans over, lip curling, and says, "How…classic," and Blair has had it.

"What have I done," she says furiously, "to deserve you being such a bitch? Do you want me to apologize for being in love with your brother? For him proposing? For trying to plan my wedding?"

Beatrice observes her coolly. "You say you love Louis but how could you? How long were you together before you got engaged? Two weeks? Less? I love my brother but his head is in the clouds; he's the type to jump in with his heart and ignore his head." She leans forward. "You I don't know at all. I don't trust you either. I just see a social-climbing little girl with delusions of royalty."

Later that night, when Blair calls Dan to complain, he asks, "What did Louis have to say?"

"I don't know," Blair admits. She hadn't told him.

Blair stares at herself in the mirror obsessively.

Every day she weighs herself, weighs her breakfast, counts her calories. She puts on five pounds anyway. She convinces herself there is already a curve to her stomach. There must be. She'll need to send altered measurements to her mother. Her mother won't be pleased at all.

Once Blair gives in, presses her finger down her throat and vomits up her single slice of melon, a quarter cup of yogurt, one slice whole wheat toast (no butter).

She can't stop crying after, full of guilt. Serena still doesn't pick up.

Since Louis likes him, Blair feels fine inviting Dan over to the hotel she and Louis are staying at for a movie. It's something they've both seen before, so Blair doesn't bother paying much attention. She sips quietly at the iced coffee Dan brought her until enough time has passed that she can ask him what she's wanted to ask since he arrived.

Making sure to sound blankly curious, she asks, "Do you still speak to Georgina?" His brow furrows, confused, so she elaborates, "About your – her baby."

"Oh." Dan studiously doesn't meet her eyes and reaches for the remote to pause the movie. "Once or twice. I wonder how he's doing, you know… I asked her for some pictures once." He glances at Blair, shrugs one shoulder. "I don't know if that made it hurt more or less. Why?"

"No reason," Blair says immediately. "I only wondered."

He nods and hits play; they watch quietly for a while before Dan asks, "Louis doesn't mind me being here, does he?"

"Why would he, Humphrey?" She arches an eyebrow, smiles. "Is someone like you supposed to be a threat?"

She expects a half-hearted laugh or a sarcastic retort, but Dan is oddly reticent.

"What it is?" she presses. "If you really want to know, I told him that we kissed once and it was nothing. Louis isn't the type to be jealous without cause. He knows we're just friends."

"We are," Dan says after a moment. "Friends. I want to be friends. It's just –"

She narrows her eyes. "Just what, Dan?"

He bites his lip. "It's a little hard sometimes. I've been feeling – I've been conflicted, I guess, about you. Since we kissed." He drops his gaze. "I'm not saying this to – to get in the way of you and Louis or anything, I just wanted you to know, since you're getting married and everything…"

"Know what, Humphrey?"

"That I have feelings for you," he says in a rush.

"What?" Blair says. "No. No, you – you said you didn't. You _told_ me it was nothing, when we kissed."

Dan keeps his eyes forward. "I knew you wanted Chuck. I didn't want to make an idiot of myself and lose a friend in the process."

"So why _now_?" she asks sharply.

"I don't know," he says, finally looking at her. He's annoyed but there's also something else in his eyes, that way he sometimes looks at her that Blair never tried to explain. "Seeing you again. I didn't expect to and – I thought maybe I was over it, but I'm not."

"Well get over it," Blair says, snatching the remote and hitting _play_.

When Dan showed up in her foyer that night ( _one paralyzing, all-consuming thought_ ) and made his little proposal, Blair had been embarrassed to admit that she was excited. He smoothed his thumb over her collarbone and she'd felt such anticipation – maybe this would be _something_ , maybe someone else would give her fireworks, someone she could talk to about _Nights of Cabiria_ and _Never On Sunday_.

But when they'd kissed there'd been nothing. No sparks. She could have been kissing anyone.

That day at the photoshoot only confirmed it – _or did it?_ she wonders now. Why would he show up in a suit if he didn't want her at all? Why did he look so – so pleased to see her?

No. She reminds herself, sitting on the cool bathroom tile after involuntarily throwing up her breakfast, that Dan had said it meant nothing.

Or maybe she just prompted him and he agreed? She can't really remember now.

She cleans herself up and slips back into bed beside Louis. There is so much Dan doesn't know about her, so many awful things. Even though he's always thought the worst of her, he doesn't really know how bad she is.

Chuck returns to the city without his best friend or stepsister in tow; Blair decides to avoid him and runs into him almost immediately. _Fate_ , she thinks, and is nauseous.

He's got some mangy dog on a leash that runs in a circle around her like a child's cartoon and knocks her into Chuck's arms.

"Kindly unhand me," she says through her teeth, pushing at his chest.

"Not two minutes and you're already throwing yourself at me," he smarms. "How's your prince?"

"More gentlemanly than _you_ ," she snaps, trying to step out of the leash. "Could you call off your mutt?"

Chuck tugs lightly on the leash until the dog untangles itself, nosing at Blair's legs as it does so. "He likes you," Chuck says.

She smiles tightly. "That's too bad, since I don't like mangy dogs."

Blair stalks off, feeling her heart clattering against her ribs. He always blindsides her. He always comes out of nowhere and surrounds her; Chuck is a temporary madness that leaves her confused and unsettled.

Couldn't he have stayed in California?

She calls her car and gives the driver Dan's address without a second thought.

Blair hadn't lied about wanting to be with Chuck or being in love with Louis; she hadn't lied when she said kissing Dan that first time didn't make her feel anything. She'd felt that same flutter of anticipation at the pink party when he placed his hands so gently on her waist, kissed her without prompting. Blair had let her hands slip up his shoulders, knot behind his neck. She hadn't pulled back even after she knew Lucien was gone.

Lately she's been wondering what would be different if she'd kissed Dan a third or fourth time.

She doesn't mean for anything to happen, honestly. It's just that Dan is so repulsively nice. When he opens the door to see her there he's both surprised and pleased.

"I hate you," Blair announces and grabs fistfuls of his t-shirt, pulls him into a kiss.

She kisses Dan with Louis' ring on her finger and she feels so guilty about everything that she can't distinguish her guilt about this.

Dan breathes her name against her mouth and she kisses him again in case he decides to say something rational. Blair needs to not think and not worry and she's never found a better way than this.

She finds the zipper on the side of her skirt and pulls it down, opens her blouse button by button while Dan stares at her like he thinks he might be making this up. "I want to," she says before he can cut her off with any questions. "Please."

Dan is unsure but a little too wanting to not go through with it. Blair leaves her camisole on for fear of revealing the possibly imagined curve of her stomach but it doesn't matter – Dan is only concerned with her mouth, kissing her deeply as he pushes inside and not stopping the kiss for anything.

(She feels that little flutter every time he touches her, or when he gives her that look. It's not fireworks but it must be _something_ and every time they kiss it feels like it's rising in her more and more.)

When she wakes up he's in his little pseudo-office typing away. She slips into a dress shirt abandoned by his bed and buttons it up carefully, right up to the top. The fabric is cool to the touch but still warmer than the room and it's…nice, to wear his shirt.

She pads across the room to his desk, clutching the shirtsleeves in her hands, and stands there uncomfortably until he blinks and looks up, smiles.

"It's the middle of the night," he tells her.

"Is that when your sad little inspiration strikes?" Blair asks, trying to lean around him to peer at the laptop screen. He catches her by the hips, pulling her away playfully.

"Did I invite you to look at that, Waldorf? Because I don't remember doing that."

"Please, like I need an invitation from you." She settles her half-concealed hands on top of his lightly. It seems to flip some kind of switch because Dan gets that sweet look on his face again.

"I like your hair," he offers, reaching up to brush the bangs out of her eyes. "I didn't say before. You look pretty."

"You're supposed to compliment me _before_ you get me into bed," she says. "Not the other way around."

He smiles but it's vaguely sad. "I care about you a lot," he starts (she can already hear it coming), "but –"

"Don't ruin it," Blair scolds, but he already has.

"I have no interest in being third string," Dan says.

"Then you shouldn't have slept with me," she snaps, moving away. His hands drop back to his lap.

"I don't regret that," Dan says. "I'm only saying –"

"I have to make a choice."

"No," he says. "Yes. I don't – You have to do what makes you happy. I'd like to think that it could be me, but that's – that's not for me to say." He watches her carefully and adds, "Maybe it's not Louis either."

"I love him," Blair says automatically.

Dan nods like he believes her but says, "Then why are you here with me?"

Blair returns to her hotel suite (New York is not her home anymore, just this place she passes through). She'd showered at Dan's despite his egregious shampoo choices and put on her same skirt and blouse, did the walk-of-shame to her hired car. All she wants is her own things, her own shampoo and fresh clothes.

Blair catches herself in the entryway mirror – no makeup, hair already curling up, shirt wrinkled. Blair is surprised for a moment how much she looks like she did in high school, stumbling home in her slip with her heels hooked over her finger.

This is different, though. This is worse.

Louis is still asleep so she showers again, wanting to smell like herself. When she's done Louis is awake, looking pleased to see her as he sits up bleary-eyed in bed.

"Where were you, darling?" he asks, forgetting his English for a moment. "I tried to call but I couldn't get through."

The lying comes as easily as it ever did. "I had dinner with Dorota and she just would not let me leave. God, can you imagine spending a night in Queens of all places?"

He laughs at her a little. "She loves you, it's not such a bad thing."

Blair loves the way he looks at her, especially in the morning, like she's silly and beautiful. She inches across the bed to curl into his side, feeling relief when he wraps an arm around her and presses a kiss to her hairline.

"We should have breakfast, my love," he murmurs. "Where you are ready. Just you and I, Beatrice can fend for herself."

Blair feels that prickling of tears behind her eyes that she feels so often lately (she blames that stupid parasite inside of her) and nods, not trusting herself to speak.

She sees Chuck again from a distance, looking the same as he's always looked and none the worse for being without her.

Blair practices, in her head, how she could possibly tell Louis everything that happened. _I slept with Chuck_ , she says silently to herself, studying her reflection in the mirror. Eyes on the not-scar on her cheek and the not-curve of her stomach, she thinks, _I slept with Dan_.

She can only see how wounded Louis will be. He'll be so disappointed in her. Louis and Sophie and Beatrice – they'll all realize that Blair is everything they thought she was, just some social-climbing tart who broke Louis' heart on her way to becoming a princess.

Anyway, who would want her after all that?

She's beginning to think the not-curve of her stomach is becoming an actual curve. She's gained ten pounds. Louis tells her she looks beautiful every morning but Blair can feel herself getting fatter and fatter.

It's been at least two months, which means Blair is rapidly running out of time on the decision-making front. There's at least half a chance the parasite is Louis' parasite and maybe she should be hoping for that – don't most engaged girls hope to have children with their fiancée some day, at some point? Blair is only hoping that it'll disappear somehow and she won't have to be the one to make that decision.

Chuck would be an awful father. And so triumphant too at finally having something that would link them together forever. When she was sixteen, staring at that pregnancy test, half her prayers were _no_ and half were _Nate_ , so horrified that it could be Chuck's because she knew just how badly that would end.

Four years later and it'll probably end worse. Blair is a firm believer in worst-case scenarios.

She and Louis are attending a banquet of some sort when Blair has another panic attack. One minute she's smiling and gracious in her painstakingly-chosen white and green gown, then a wave of nausea sends her running to the bathroom, and then the stall is so small and it's got to be over two months and Louis doesn't even notice that she spends half her time throwing up because they barely see each other and Chuck was at the banquet, watching her from the bar, and she doesn't know what to do, she can't –

Blair excuses herself with a headache via text and makes her escape, goes to the only friend she has in New York City (and isn't that sad).

She tries Dan's door and is surprised when it opens easily. She hears him call from somewhere inside; he's just stepping out of his room when she steps inside.

"Blair," he says, clearly not expecting her. "You're…here."

"I need someone to talk to," she says quietly. "If you can forget about everything that happened between us for an hour and just be my friend."

He frowns slightly. "Did something happen?"

Blair opens her mouth and expects nothing to come out since she's been pushing it down and pretending it didn't exist for so long, but she's also been aching to tell someone, anyone. "I'm pregnant."

She half-enjoys the comically alarmed and horrified look that appears on his face. "God, Humphrey, relax. It's not _yours_."

"Oh, I didn't –" He breathes a sigh of relief. "Of course it's not. That would just be…a cruel twist of fate."

She rolls her eyes. "It's Louis'," she says. All the joking zips out of the room and her voice is much quieter when she adds, "Or Chuck's."

Dan's jaw tightens minutely. He studies her for a minute and says, "Let's go get something to eat."

He takes her to some grubby diner where the waitresses stare at her dress and Blair is afraid to sit down. "I already have morning sickness, Humphrey, do you really want to push it?"

"They're open twenty-four hours," he says, sliding one of the sticky, plastic-covered menus across to her. "And they won't bother us."

Blair gets a slice of apple pie and Dan only coffee; he watches her eat half of it before prompting, "So, you're –"

Blair nods. "I am."

"How long?"

She hesitates. "I'm not sure."

He nods too, picking up a fork and stabbing a bite of apple filling.

"I don't –" she starts, stops. "I –"

Dan tilts his head. "What?"

In one guilty breath, she says, "I don't want it."

"Maybe you will?" he says after a moment. "Who knew Georgina Sparks would take to motherhood."

"I think there's a bit more to it than that," she says dryly. "There's more to it than just liking it, and I can't even do that."

She feels pathetic sitting in that diner eating pie in a ball gown with Dan Humphrey pitying her.

"I think you should talk to Louis," Dan says quietly. When he meets her eyes, his own very serious, she knows he's thinking of Georgina and the kid that wasn't his. "But I'm on your side," he adds. "I'm your friend first."

Blair expels a long, slow sigh. "Thanks, Dan."

He pats her hand. "Any time."

Blair hasn't had an Audrey dream in ages. She can't remember the last one. Her dreams have all started to blend into one Freudian lump, full of hallways and mice and doors that don't open.

Over breakfast Louis tells her that he and Beatrice have to be in Monaco for two weeks. "Just a short trip, my love, and then we'll be back. You should stay, continue arrangements." He offers her a small smile. "I promise, we'll have more time together after this. I know it's been hard."

He's always promising her more time. On the plane to Monaco a month and a half ago, he murmured all sorts of plans in her ear, picnics and talking and sex, barely a moment spent away from each other. Then it was all the time they'd have in New York. And now it's all the time they'll have when he's back.

At least he's taking Beatrice with him.

Alone in her hotel room it's easier to think. Blair thinks she's known from that first positive test what she was going to do, eventually. It doesn't make the doing any easier.

She calls Dan. She's curled against the pillows of the king-sized hotel bed, feeling like a tiny doll on a cushion. "Are you sure?" he asks.

"Yes," Blair sighs.

He sounds unsure when he says, "Do you…want me to come?"

Blair nods first thought he can't see her and then says, "Yes."

It seems as though Bair is surrounded by older, well-meaning nurses, like an after-school special about safe sex. They lead her around looking slightly too tired, too used to this, too practiced. Blair goes through the session with the counselor on autopilot, mind blank and decidedly decided, outwardly composed and offering weak fake smiles. She can play the game without thinking, she does it all the time.

The other girls in the waiting room make Blair anxious. Her expression is echoed on each of their faces and all of them know it. She takes Dan's hand because she's too nervous not to. He squeezes back comfortingly.

"Ms. Waldorf?" Another well-meaning nurse is here to collect her and take her beyond the ugly sea-green door. The woman's hair is short and blonde. "The doctor will see you now."

Bair has a momentary flash of utter panic, fingers tightening around Dan's.

"You don't have to," Dan says immediately. "It's up to you."

"No, no, I have to," she says, nodding decisively.

Kindly, the nurse offers, "If you need to speak to someone, we would be happy to –"

"No," Blair says again. She takes a breath. "No, I'm ready."

"I'll be here," Dan says.

Blair nods, releasing his hand and standing, following the nurse into the cool green hallway dotted with identical doors and then into the room where she will undress and be examined again.

"Your boyfriend seems very supportive," the nurse says.

Blair is too tense to correct her. "Thank you."

After the procedure is over, Dan helps her into the borrowed car and they begin the drive back to Brooklyn. Every other second he glances over at her to make sure the ride isn't jostling her too hard.

"Stop smothering me, Humphrey," she snaps, sounding too tired to make enough of an impact.

"Deal with it," Dan says.

He tucks her up in his bed at the loft, made up with fresh sheets for her. "Do you want anything?"

"Stop talking like that," Blair says, eyes already falling shut. "In that stupid quiet voice, like I'm going to shatter if you talk too loud."

Dan huffs a little sigh. "Sorry. Do you?"

She shakes her head.

When she wakes up she stays put, still sleepily drifting, aware of Dan peeking into the room every now and then. The fourth time he does, she mutters, "Dan, I'm not dying, you can leave me alone for longer than twenty minutes."

"So she is awake." He lingers in the doorway. "And just as pleasant as ever. How do you feel?"

Exhausted, sore, uncomfortable. She knows that's not what he means though. "Awful," she says. "Relieved."

Dan nods. "I'll be outside, okay?"

She buries her face in his pillow. "Where else would you be?"

Louis returns, handsome and princely as ever, and Blair still can't quite bring herself to say all the things she maybe should. She only sits him down and says _I think we should talk_ , makes him half as miserable as she could.

"Why?" he asks. "I thought we were happy."

"I know," Blair says, staring down at her folded hands. "I thought so too."

Blair has stopped being surprised when Chuck shows up wherever she is, however unlikely the location.

"I heard you threw over the prince," he says, low-voiced.

"I heard you slept your way through half the continents," Blair says brightly, eyes on her task. "Congratulations."

He leans against the table next to her. "I'm surprised it took us this long to see each other again." His stare travels over her. "What are you doing here?"

"This," she indicates the machine, "is called a copy machine. I understand you've probably never used one before, so you have no idea what it is. It takes this," she pulls a sheet of paper from the top of the copied stacks, "and makes a bunch of papers _just like it_. Magic, right?"

He purses his lips. "Yes, thank you for that, Waldorf. Why are you making six hundred copies of something?"

"What, your little team of paid stalkers couldn't figure it out?" Blair scoffs. "Prospective jobs often want to see your resume, Chuck. It's not science." The last copy finishes and she picks up the stack, tucking it into a paper folder. "Though you've never had to use one of those either, have you? I mean, what would you even put on it?"

Chuck frowns, following her as she heads for the door. "I don't need a resume. Everyone knows who I am."

"Yes," she agrees, "you're Bart Bass' son. How's that going for you?"

Blair pushes out onto the bright street, doesn't wait for an answer.

Blair remains at the hotel while she's apartment hunting, though it doesn't take her very long to find someplace suitable. The apartment is not too big but it feels spacious and empty. All the walls are freshly painted white and the floors are polished and the doorman learns her name immediately; it all feels so new and fresh. It feels like it belongs to her.

She half-expected to regret it. The word is still one she doesn't like to say: _abortion_ , like it's a curse. Blair doesn't regret it. She goes to work and goes to school and makes Dan Humphrey take her for apple pie and she doesn't owe anything to anyone but herself.

Blair feels lighter than she has in weeks.


End file.
